Why I am a Christian

              Why am I a Christian?  I am a Christian because I don’t want to be a slave.  I don’t want to be a slave to anything evil or to myself.  I am a Christian because I don’t like the feeling of losing control of myself and my perception of reality.  I am a Christian because, left to my own devices, I would hurt people in order to benefit myself, my wants and desires.  I am a Christian because I have realized to the core of me that life is only found in the Way of Christ.  All other modes of life consist in nothing more than just breathing.  I have found as the ancient wise prophet taught, that all physical life is utterly meaningless. 

                I am a Christian primarily because I value freedom and not just the shabby perception of “freedom” that is found in Western Democracy.  Freedom of choice isn’t true freedom.  It can’t lead you to freedom of being.  For you will only choose what you can’t help but choose.  Democracy is nothing more than people getting to decide for themselves one form of slavery over the other because democracy cannot free people from themselves or their own selfish and individualistic desires.  In fact, Western Democracy celebrates individualism and self centeredness.  Without such things, democracy wouldn’t work to begin with.  Democracy needs selfishness to operate.  It needs people who believe that their voice and their desires are more important than their neighbors.  It thrives self centeredness and self definitiveness.  It needs the heresy of individualism.

                I am a Christian because I believe in freedom and I hate slavery.  Our Lord said that “everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”  The one who believes that he has acquired freedom because he has severed himself in his thinking from any notions of God, or the divine, is a fool.  We are all slaves, we are all servants.  There is no created man who is truly free because we are all created.  As created beings, we are subject to our created natures because of sin.  In other words, we are subject to natural necessity.  The one who seeks to liberate himself from God only enslaves himself to himself.  His own desires become the master of his person.  The goal of the human endeavor isn’t to be slaves to our desires but to learn how to use them and direct them appropriately.  The godless man can never come close to remotely accomplishing this because he can never transcend himself, he can never see or live beyond himself.  In his own eyes, he is the only ontological source of being in his little world.  As such, he will do nothing more than seek to impose his will upon others.  He will never be able to selflessly love others from the heart because, again, he will never be able to see beyond himself and transcend his natural inclinations towards self gratification and self definition. 

                I am a Christian because I have learned that self-definition only leads to death and misery where communion with God leads to life.  Communion with God is life because God is life.  And, God’s life is free.  He is not bound to createdness because He is not created.  He is not subject to His own nature but He wills freely and truly.  It is only through communion with such a God that true freedom and life can be found.  It is also the only place where we can learn to love.  Love, for God, is not a natural necessity.  He loves because He chooses to not because He has to.  We, as selfish things, can never grasp the notion of love entirely.  Our version of love has alternative motives.  We pursue others for selfish gain.  We do things for others so that we would get something in turn, whether it comes in the form of the beloved paying us back or a fuzzy feeling within ourselves.  Doing loving things, for us, is more about feeling good about the fact that we are doing loving things than it is about the love itself.  It is always ultimately about us, not the other person.  We do it so that we would feel good.  We don’t do it to genuinely love the other. 

                It is only through communion with God that we are set free to love as He does.  It is only through Him that we can gain the Way of life that He has.  It is only through Him that we can enter into his Way of existence (not into His essence, or the “what” of God, but the “how” of God).  While we still remain servants, we will be servants of a different communion, of a true communion.  Paul says it well in Romans 6:17-18:

                “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

                Paul is echoing our Lord.  In parallel to His saying that “everyone who sins is a slave to sin,” He said, “If you continue (or hold on to) in my word, you are truly my disciples.  Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  -Jn. 8:31-32

                There is a “pattern of teaching” (or, “tradition”) that our Lord Jesus has laid out for us that has been passed down to us and Paul praises the Romans for following this pattern.  It is a Way of life that is being talked about here, not just intellectual beliefs.  It is about more than just tipping our heads in consent to rational Biblical propositions or doctrines.  It is about living the Way, living according to the “pattern.”  For, this is the pattern that leads to freedom because it is the Way of the life of God Himself.  It leads us into the “how” of God’s existence.  It is the Way that transcends self centeredness and self definition.  It is the Way that leads to the transcending (not negating or rejecting) of oneself in the ontological sense. 

                This is a way of life to be followed and not just thought about.  According to Jesus, and this is a point that is terribly overlooked by most Christians and non-Christians alike, it is only through living in Jesus’ Way of life that we can come to know the truth.  We hold to (practice) the teachings of Jesus first, “then” we will know the “truth.”  For some reason, we have made it out to be the other way around.  We have said, “truth comes first, then following,” whereas Jesus says, “follow me, then you will learn truth.”  According to Paul, this following also leads us out of slavery and into life. 

                I am a Christian because I believe in Jesus.  I believe that the Way of life that He received from the Father (“I only do what I see my Father doing…”) is the only way that makes sense in and of our world.  Existing as the Triune God does, not in the “what” of God but in the “how” of God, is the only Way that leads to freedom, to life, and to love.  This is what it means when we claim that, “God is love.”  He is free and He has no need to love but, rather, He chooses to.  I am a Christian because I choose love, a choice that no non-Christian can make in the truest sense.